Questlove SupremeMusician, songwriter and producer Jack White talks about how music kept him from the priesthood, his love of analog recording technology and the Amy Winehouse duet that never was.
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Questlove Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
This is Sugar, Steve and On this week's Quest Love Supreme classic, musician, songwriter and producer.
Jack White talks about how music kept.
Him from the priesthood, his love of analog recording technology, and the Amy Winehouse duet that never was originally.
Released May ninth, twenty eighteen.
Suprema Suprema roll call, Suprema Suprema role call, Suprema Suprema roll call Suprema Suprema.
Ro afterartigue of hip hop culture.
Yeah all good, fine, Yeah, but is this dame for bananas?
Yeah, that's where I all the mine Supreme.
Shun Supreme role called Supreme Suprema roll call.
In the building. Yeah, it's time to settle the school. Yeah, in this room filled Yeah with racking toy roll call Supreme Supremo role Suprema rod called My name is Sugar, Yeah, the one you trust? Yeah until I bust out.
Yeah, my blunder car Supreme SUPREMEA role called Supreme Supremo role called Bill. Yeah.
That's how I'm known. Yeah, happy, I'm not.
Yeah.
Michael Cohen Suprema Supremer, road called Supremer s Supremo.
Roll calls Boss Bill, Yeah, ain't no debating, Yeah, your fool need Jesus.
Yeah, get behind me, Satan.
Roremo Supremo, roll called Supremo Supremo.
Roll calls like.
Yeah and Jack White, Yeah, you're looking kind of good.
Yeah.
One another wife.
Roll roll call, roll call my name is Jack. Yeah, I don't smoke crack Yeah. And if you're nice to me, yeah, I might come back.
Roll call Supremo Supremo.
Roll called Supremo Son Sun Supremo. Roll called Suprema Son Supremo. Roll called Suprema Son Supremo roll.
Yoh minute, we listen to Cardi b.
Of that, you know, and then side Jack. That was a little inspirational.
So wow, ladies, Uh taping from the world famous Electric Lady A Studios in New York City. I got to say that this is the most people have ever seen in this room. It's like the higher caliber the guests, the most the more more lighting.
Body yeah, lamb shots, and more bad we do.
Richard dimple Fields episode like, well we get the flashlights.
Yeah some cheeto ahol.
Yeah, anyway, this is another episode of Quest of Supreme. We got funke Alot in the house. Yes, yeah, and uh, you know support no news is good news. Yeah, I'm sorry. I always want to Gary gow that and you're you're in a great space coaster, are you?
Yeah?
I missed, I missed that scary.
The new was to Get Along Gang.
Really, I really get along game.
That is good news with Gary get along anyway.
We got Boss Bill the house. Hello, I'm come back. Are you Are you fine? It's not a to that's all I know. That's that's great. Yeah, that's baby got the stitches. That was a reference from the movie.
Don't explained. Just ask your kids, the parents ask I'm paid Bill, how you doing good? But are you I'm good?
Uh?
And and and it's like everything is great, everything is gravy.
I'm proud of I'm proud of your your your new you.
I won't say anything for the rest of you.
I say the best from last Sugar Steve, Sugar Star.
You know, for some reason, we were taking this as a joke and now like I feel, I feel genuinely threatened that you've managed to turn an I G chatting uh device into an actual network.
Oh yeah, it's the Sugar Network. You fessed up the road up. So you're like Ted Turner the Instagram You've heard own some context.
You know, I have a spin off of this. It's an unauthorized spinoff. Okay, it's a spinoff. Nonetheless, it's called Chat with Sugar.
Basically, listen to the things that you collect, like mantage MIC's old records, you know.
Yeah, so you and Steve collected. He just wants first collect to collect the resident.
Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, our guest today. I have to say I don't want to say he's a renaissance man. I don't say he's a drummer, singer, guitarist, piano player, producer, songwriter, label owner, the hells from the d uh, the city of Detroit, Michigan.
In Uh.
He wear as many hats in his lives, you know, a member of the Rank of Tours as as fonte.
Let's say that again, the Racket Tours ranking. I mean he said ranking Tours. I thought he said rank. I thought it right.
Okay, well I thought he got it wrong, and I was Anyway, the Racket Tours that weather sorry, Uh, you know he's produced and gusting appeared on a lot of projects that we love from Uh the Red Lends, Valley of Rose one of my favorite records. Uh, Legendarry Wander Jackson, don't work with Lisa Keys, Beyonce, typical Quests now John of ling Stone's Uh. The list goes on and on. Uh, but it's and the Muppets. Yeah, but it's Uh as one half of.
That's the one I'm the envioust most of I'm jealous too, but.
As one half of the unit known as the White Stripes that once made, Once made.
Uh my hero.
John Peel once declared that this is some of the best music he's ever heard since the days of James Marshall Hendricks, not to mention the massive critical claiming He's gotten twelve Grammys as a producer, as an engineer, songwriter, and I'm jealous as a package designer.
That's a good one. I'm highly jealous of his package designing Grammys. Anyway, I can go on and on.
His third solo record, entitled Boarding House Reach, It was released March of twenty eighteen. It's his third number one record. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the eccentric, eclectic, always entertaining.
Damn I'm good.
Thank you, thank you for that introduction.
Okay, I gotta get this out. Notree, what's up with you and bananas?
You know, a lot of you when you make those writers, you make a lot of jokes that only people in the industry will understand, you know that a lot of fans would understand. And that was one of those sort of red eminems.
Did you do that thinking that was?
Who was the website that used to always put all celebrity n Did you do that thinking that the Smoking Ground pick it up?
People?
Well, people in the industry think it was funny. You know, all the stuff on there was you know, for people to think it was funny. But you know, I think it's one of those mysterious things that people out there think. Riders are sort of like, you know, snap your fingers and you know, diving encrusted staircases will be made for you or something. But so you know, the artist pays for them themselves, you know.
So well, didn't somebody say that they put the crazy stuff on the rider to make sure that people were paying attention.
Yeah, Van Haaling or something.
They like, the whole just blew him and them. They want to see how how much attention you paid to detail right.
In that case, they never paid. Like we still have like white white al blunts and like the nineteen ninety four tang writer. Now we haven't changed our joini yet.
Hopefully there's less PCP on it. Yeah yeah, wait, way less PCP. I get it.
So, yeah, we thank you for coming to the show. I got to mean so many questions to ask, so let's hope I get this right. Were you born in Detroit, Michigan?
Yes, yes, I like the first one from Detroit. Yeah, it's it's there's more in the hip hop world, like J Dilla and stuff, but there's there's few in the rock and roll world since maybe the sixties, actually born and raised in the city itself. Most are from the.
So everyone from the outside, where's from from Rochester? On her?
I G she's trying to front like she's Ravenham Trammick. I think for a little while, which is inside the city of Detroit's Polish neighborhood, inside of the city Detroit, So she she does have some of that street real street cred in that sense.
What are the what are the actual sections of Detroit?
Because the black people that talk to me to say, is the east side and the west side, and then there's like, uh, damn, what's the.
I'm from Southwest Detroit, which is sort of also called Mexican Towns in all Mexican neighborhood, but it was once an all Polish neighborhood back in the day. But there is no you know that that Journey song born and raised in South Detroit. That's kind of a joke in Detroit because there is no South Detroit. South Detroit is windsor Canada. Canada comes underneath Detroit. Okay, so we knew Journey had never actually been sounded good though, So what.
Is what is your version of Detroit?
Because I guess you're the Yeah, I guess you're the first white musician that I know that that I personally know. I haven't asked to say Bob like we boys once upon a time, but you know, I never knew his story. So like, what's your what's your version of growing up in Detroit?
Like, well, it was sort of like a it's sort of like a wasteland.
Really.
It was, you know a lot of burned down buildings and bandoned houses, empty lots, closed up businesses, you know, storefront churches, that kind of a thing. I mean then the neighborhood really didn't have a didn't have a bookstore, didn't have a record store, nothing, you know that you could really like. When we needed guitar strings, we went to the pawn shop and got guitar strings and trump sticks. That was the only option in where I lived. In music store, no, no, nothing we had. We had to get a drive from somebody out to the suburbs to get anything useful. So it was kind of like that. And yeah, it's scary at times, but rough, but also feeling like no hope. But what's great about it In the last couple of years, everything is finally after forty years of that, finally has changed and it's really coming around to a whole new renaissance. Really, it's just incredibly beautiful what's happening. Things are just coming a live. Buildings are being bought and change, And I always think a good sign of a city on the rise as a new restaurant popping up every months. That's always a good sort of template.
So it's not as opening Cepia Tone great because whenever I think of Detroit, I still see Brown Cpiotone.
Yeah, muddy existence.
Yeah, it's a lot of that's still there, Yeah, for sure, but I think it's finally. I think in ten years from now, all that's going to be gone. You know, I really I would put money on that now because the last two or three years it's just been incredible because it started in the Cast Corridor and which is traditionally the roughest neighborhood in the city, and that's where I went to high school, and that's where we've built a new Third Man Records location. There are new pressing plant is in the Cast Corridor and Masonic Tempa all the early garage rock shows I was a part of. We're all in that neighborhood and it's mostly empty lots and you know, like homeless missions and and uh you know, some industrial buildings. So now that's for it to come out of that neighborhood, for that renaissance to start. There is a really good sign.
So you go back a lot and you give you give back in your own way because you said you have your studio there.
Yeah, trying to the pressing plan especially was Yeah, that was that was a really I'm really proud of that because it also created jobs and it also brought together a whole community people who really love music and vinyl and you know, music preservation and all that. So that was pretty pretty incredible to be able to do that in Detroit City.
You know.
So the part that I know like where I don't know St.
Andrews is still a thing or not, But what part of town is that, Like there's Greek Town, there's that monorail thing or.
Yeah, what part of town is that? What part of town is the like where Saint Andrew's.
Hall Andrews, Yeah, downtowntown Detroit.
Yeah, okay, you see, so without uh, the neighborhood record store, assuming that you're born in the seventies and having that experience, like how did you discover music if it wasn't a thing where like you could hear your favorites on the radio right and cop a record?
It was a couple of different ways. One I have I'm the youngest of ten kids, so a lot of a lot of like you, real blues musicians. I'm the seventh son in the family too, so heavier, oh, no, seventh son of a seventh daughter. My mom's the youngest of ten children as well. And then so there's a lot of music, a lot of hand me down records family gigantic, Yeah, you know your mother's children. I'm sorry, not one one family, uh one pair of parents, but uh yeah, so a lot of a lot of music coming from them, A bunch of musicians in the family, you know, they were. They had a lot of huge record collection. A lot of that got handed down to me for that sort of like the rock and roll side of things, and the forties music from my parents and the neck and coals and Glenn Miller stuff, all all from them and then out on you know, outside, like on the street.
It was the.
The neighborhood kids. It was just like I think the easiest way to describe it, when we were playing four square, it was setting up boom boxes next to the four square court and that was the music being played. You know, this is you know, eight eighty three through eighty six kind of era of the those days of hip hop on that side of things, which my brothers didn't listen to. So it was two sides of the coin.
You know, kind of hip hop. Were you listening to it at time?
Well, at that time would have been you know, it would have been L Cool Jay's I'm Bad and you know, but it would have and a lot of the you know, so the one hit wonder stuff that was coming through. I think that was a lot of things, you know, mixtapes where it's just whatever radio. You know, you guys remember that obviously the recording from the radio and you missed the first five seconds of the sun and those were the those were the mixtapes we listened to during foest whare I guess?
But okay, so uh, as far as you're you said, your your other siblings, how many of them are accomplished musicians as well?
Or it's just like they were there or five of them.
Some of them are really talented, don't care about it though, and some of them are still playing gigs today, you know, in different kinds of bands in Detroit, and a couple of them work at third Man Records worth the pressing Plant, and and so it was cool. I was the drummer growing up in the family, so all I did was play drums my whole childhood. I didn't touch a guitar until I was fourteen something like that.
So does it become somewhat alienating.
Once you have your bout with success and you know, the massive success that you've had, are.
You able are you able.
Are you able to maintain a closeness with your family members now or is it like some of them are You're cool with some it's a little awkward now, Like.
Yeah, I think I think it goes through phases probably with everybody. And I mean that re goes for friends too, where you know, something happens to you, I mean what happened to us, especially in Detroit, where there's just nobody has that kind of hope like maybe in La or something where you'd have like, oh, yeah, you know somebody works at a record label. Well, yeah, you know, we'll get you guys a gig or whatever. Detroit never had any illusions about you could get anywhere, especially with rock and roll or lose music either. And so for us to go sort of very you know, sort of worldwide after a few years, it's very shocking to anybody around us, especially the family, not really knowing how to relate to what does that mean? You know.
So even at the time when you guys were for starting out with your music, like, there wasn't a thing like well, eventually, let's let's phony up enough cash and then we'll go to you know, a music city, either Nashville or la or never.
I'd never heard anybody talk about that at all. I never heard anybody even mention the dream of that. It was always just like, forget it.
So they beginning ever going to happen. You're just going to be a local musician, And that was that was the way.
I'm honest to God, had that exact same attitude until probably the third White Stripes album. Uh, well we started to go to when we get going to London, John Peelee started championing us, and label started talking to us, and Megan and I were just like, wait, what wait So.
You were still moving furniture on the days, just like the first time.
Oh yeah, I had my pholstry shop up until at least a second White Stripes album.
Yeah.
So I've heard ten kids a few jobs.
Yeah, Okay, just for information, what's the age difference between you and your oldest brother, you said, the seventh.
Son, there we go.
Yeah, the oldest in the family is twenty one years older than me. So they were often mistaken from my mom. Yeah, damn as a baby.
I see I've read once where you said you were uh considering uh going in the priesthood.
Yeah, was that a serious consideration?
Yeah, it was wild because I got accepted to a seminary in Wisconsin, and just short of trying to, you know, your brain starts to want to get out of everything. I want to get out of this room. I want to get out of this house. I want to get out of this neighborhood. I want to get out out. And that was one way I thought that I could get out.
But the.
Crux of the problem was I couldn't bring my musical equipment with me. You couldn't bring drums and guitar or whatever with me to this place. He was a dorm and you're, you know, you're trying to be a priest. I also felt there was some kind of calling for me in some way. I didn't really know what it was because you know, I'm thirteen or something. So so at the last second I had changed my mind. I went to public school in Detroit, which was a strange thing for my family because it's a Catholic family to go to go to public school. But the public school I went to was in downtown Detroit, in the cast Court or just you know, right off the outskirts of downtown. So it the neighborhood school I had in southwester Retart was kind of full of a lot of gangs at the time. They had really exploded at that time, so it was sort of dangerous to go to the neighborhood school if you weren't part of one of these gangs. So it seemed like for you know, several six seven different reasons, it led me to this school cast Tech, which ended up being as I got there, realized it was a very historically Detroit uh school. Iby Diana Ross went there, Harry Batoya, the famous furniture designer, went there, John DeLorean. There's this huge, huge list of people who that was the school to go to for, you know, sixty seven years. I didn't know about until I got in there.
So what did you establish? First of all, a lot of your businesses start with the word third. Yeah, what was it third Furniture or yeah.
Man of postry and third man records.
So what is it with the significance of number? The third numbers?
I started all anything creative I did, poetry, music versus notes in the song. I would just start revolving around the number three a lot. I got obsessed with that number. As about in fifteen sixteen, it was we were working on a couch and it was three staples I had put down, and it was the minimum amount to hold a piece of fabric on the side of wood, you know, left right center, And I thought, well, that's great. That doesn't leave everything black and white. So there's two choices, you know, Republican Democrat black and white. Is that there's a third option, which sort of means everything, And I thought that's a great balance for anything I do artistically. So I've been holding on to that for dear life ever since, you know, to sort of ground me whenever I'm working on anything.
Damn. So lectric relaxation must have blown you away, right, So how did you? How did you meet Meg?
We? It was the same plastic surgeon down in Argentina. Just we looked so much alike.
We had to start a.
Wait, does that mean that you're always you always? Because we jumped a may But I was just curious, like you always?
Who are you are?
Like when you went to high school? You are the same person that you were in high school?
Yeah? Wow, I mean the same height and everything.
No, I mean you you know what I mean. Some people change, they evolved, and yeah.
I'm just I'm just I think I'm just in a constant state of confusion.
Yes, it looks very focused.
Well, actually I did skip me in good. What were your early band experiences like, Uh.
It was drumming a drum with my brothers and their band Catalyst. And then I drummed in a like three piece of blues band with my brother and Dominic who plays bass with me now still. We had a bank all the funk ups and that was sort of punk and blues mixed together kind of in a in a very teenagey way. And then I'm sorry, that's the greatest you totally were allowed, Okay, and then uh name ever, yea, we were? We so Dominic he still plays bass with me now on this tour right now. We've been playing together since were thirteen or so. And then I was a drummer in this sort of cow punk band. I wanted to sort of learn about, uh, reading music for drums, so I thought I joined them, maybe the Marching Band. I learned how to read music for drums, and it didn't work out. I lasted one day in the Marching Band and they were just like get out of here. Really well, it was sort of like three hours a day practice every day, then an hour long bus ride home so I wouldn't be getting home to like eight thirty every day, and then just two hours too much. All this. You know, I love the drums, but it seemed like it was almost like joining the rotc or something for me.
When did you get your first drum set?
Well, when I was five, we had one in the attic, so that was that was the one I played all through till high school.
What kind was it?
It was a Ludwig black Ludwig set in the seventies, some pisty Oh shit, yeah, five o five, so it was it sounded great, It was really cool. My brothers had some pretty cool equipment. They sort of were good friends with the paunch out a couple blocks away, and they got they got the stuff behind the desk kind of treatment.
You know.
Did you ever use any of that stuff on any of your records?
Yeah? And then the drum set I had in uh high school, it was a set of white pearls. That's which became Meg's drum set in the white stripes. And then yeah, all this stuff I bought as a teenager was the worstrip's equipment for the first first few years.
Yeah, so your love for, or at least what we perceive as your love for vintage equipment, and that isn't you coming to a place where you're sort of going, Uh.
I can't explain it how like.
This this is, this is more necessity of you collecting secondhand equipment, and yeah, vintage stuff more than usually like a musicians, not dumb down, but like lesson, like a cat like me that has asked acts. I'm so black, right, No, But I'm just saying that because of the texture and the sound that old, older equipment gives, which is why I gravitate to it. But if that's all you were working with, I assume that even now to the relentless level that you collect vintage things is more of you.
Staying in your comfort zone.
Yeah, there's They're definitely you. You're brought up in that sort of circumstances. I know some people like I think you know, Danger Mouse still us as his first computer program he learned on and I don't know if it's what's it called asset asset I think so yeah, and yo, but he told me, he told me it's not worth the time to relearn it all on a new thing. You might as well just stick with what he started with, and that might have something to do with it too. Learning on tape by myself because nobody taught me how to do it. Really, I had to really just sort of sit and learn how to do a four track reel to reel with a mixer myself. So that maybe kind of gets you in love with the mechanical nature of it. But also as the years went on, whenever I got a chance to a be it like we would record on a tape and then we were bounce it approaches and I bounce and listen to them back and forth, you know, and say, God, I guess can't stay. I can't help it. Man, The tape sounds more soulful. It has whatever it has that movement, it has that movement to it. It's like intangible. You can't really describe it, this movement that it has. All mechanical things have this movement that add little wobbles and warbles to what's happening, and that maybe kind of comes off as soul or soulfulness to the listener. I'm not sure, but it just feels alive to me.
But that's a plug that exactly no.
But see that's the thing I'm hoping now a guy like me has to work with computer technology simply because the small, confined space that I'm in doesn't allow for course, you know, the the you know a lot of these things that you're using, and.
It's expensive, you know, so a lot of people don't have access to it, so younger kids.
So I'm hoping that one day, like someone just invents you're gonna put a real reel in that little room you practice in.
I would pay money to see that.
No, I mean, I just want the plugins because I spend at least hours trying to lower the quality of the sound of things that I record, or make it sound to make it sound like it's beat up and used or whatever.
Have you put plugins next to a real, real jack and listen to them, do.
You yeah, well you got you got that sort of you know, I get into I get into being sort of the poster board, like I'm always preaching for people not to use this stuff. I'm really not. Yes, people just asking me, I feel, how do you do it? You know, how do you do it? And I say, well, this is how I do it. And it's sort of like what amp do you like? If you listen to a tube bamp and you nix it to it next to a solid state and I'd be saying it's pretty good, but it's not like the tube bamp.
You know.
I was going to say, you also edit your own tapes.
Correct, Yeah, this album I just put out is the first time I ever edited on pro tools a whole album, so that before that it was all just razor blade tape and razor blade edits. So it would keep it another kind of way to kind of confine things, to keep it really simple. So they didn't get too complicated with this album.
So it wasn't just a challenge yourself as in like, okay, well I conquered that and let me try to force myself to do a new.
Way of recording.
It was sort of out of necessity. I mean, there was a lot of modern techniques being used in the album, and that was that was one of them. But it was definitely out of necessity for recording with bands here in New York and LA and in Nashville. I'd have, you know, eighteen to twenty tracks, which for me was a ton I usually only record on eight track, so that was a lot of stuff to try to get down and the only only way to possibly do it was to edit on pro tools. Do you lose my vocal? Seemed like it one out of the headphones.
Sorry, he's engineering right now. This is all going to tape for sure. You know we should do this. Yeah, sound fantastic. Can you imagine how long it would take to put the show out? That really looked? Let's just lie and say we're recording it to tape. See if anyway? Okay, yes, Lazy and Jonys you we're now on.
But you know, what you were talking about was that they are doing plug ins now with or imitating the warble of tape, and that those little squiggles and that tiny little mechanical you know, sort of flaws to the tape machine and making a plug in and running it through that. I know a lot of people record on pro tools and run it through a tape machine and back, which is kind of a cool technique as well. But at the end, at any rate, anytime, whether it's reverb or compression or that kind of program, every single one of them is an emulation of the real thing.
You know.
Digital reverb, for example, a reverb in a cave is real reverb or reverb through a spring is real reverb. So the digital version of it, it can sound exactly like it, but it's still an emulation of the real thing, which is I don't know if you want to get that deep into the psychology of the soulfulness of things.
I also know that you you you deal with Shanola. Correct, Yeah, you Soanola. Oh it's you don't know everybody else explain what it is. All right, We're going to start this fighting right now. Welcome back. Anyway, Shanola uh turntables.
And they make watches first, and then they're starting to make turntables and headphones. Now we bought a building together in Cast Corridor where the Third Man Records location is, and Shanola has their flagship store, and they opened a factory where they make they make watches in the city of Detroit. So it's pretty amazing what they did.
So I'm just saying that I know a lot of audio files that you know they have, you know, Vinae turntables, And I'm a dude that love was collecting records and stuff. But the one thing I feel guilty of is that I'm not the guy that like gets an orgasm off of vinyl. Now as I know a lot about you.
I feel like I learned so much and I.
Thought you did.
Know.
I'm just saying that it's it's I mean, for a guy that relentlessly collects records and all those things, Like.
I feel guilty that I'm.
Not one of these, Like I don't have what's what's the turntable in the lobby right now?
Like a Macantize? Like I've yet to get a mac. Do you want a mechantize?
Not a magtish churning table? But I do have the amplifiers, Yet turntable is a little.
To expense that truly make a difference to you or.
I think that what goes on and to me there is the mcguffin of whether the format is a tract, tapes or cassettes or vinyl. I think vinyl is just the most viable thing that everyone can kind to get around to the large artwork and the large object just trying to be reverential to music itself. Like a movie theater and a seven millimeter film going in there, closing the door, turning the lights off, the curtain opens and we watch a film. We actually think in twenty eighteen, we all get off our ass and we drive to a theater and sit down in silence, turn our phones off and in the dark watching movie. That's incredible. We're still doing that. I just want that same reverence for music. So the vinyl part, you know, if it's if it's eight track or cassettes or whatever it is. I just like that it's something you can hold in your hands. Yeah. And I also think that when it comes to the way, you know, I say we travel and stuff. I'm not bringing a turntable backstage and setting it up. I'm listening on an iPod or or we're listening in someone's phone, going through beats pill or something like that, doing whatever we can. I don't have a phone now, coming to it, so you still on no cell phone?
I don't know. But the family members would you.
Reach? That's real though I do, uh mostly just emails is how I communicate. That way I can walk away from it. I can sit down and do.
It and walk away.
I'm sorry.
I know you were making another point, but when did you get to this point where you were allowed to do that, because you know that's a luxury.
Oh my god.
Yeah, don't think people around me it doesn't drive them crazy. Drives them crazy. But it's just sort of a I think that it's just one of those things for me personally. Again, I'm not preaching to other people that. For me personally, I can't do that because I will be on it all day long. It will not stop, and there's just so much going on in my world that I don't really want to be a slave to that. It'll it'll just consume my life. And it's nice to be like I think, you know, it's it's an interesting thing. I can give you example of my kids. We had like a family car and the first we had the same car for the first like seven years that they were growing up. We would take long trips from Nashville to Detroit and stuff like that. You're actually kids, kids kids, they're ten and eleven. Now, let's say for the first seven years with this family car and this the this car had a DVD player that we never told them about, and they would point to this thing and the scene like what is that? Dad Like, Oh, that's just something for the air condition. And my point wasn't to deprive them of whatever. It was just like that imagination time where you get to really think and look out the window and just that's the time where you really start to imagine the best things in life.
See, you're not the dad that let like the Little Mermaid babysit your kids.
So that.
They don't have iad yo, dude, I admire that shit because like I'll go to Sunday brunch restaurants and I'll just see a bunch of kids.
Yeah, that requires real bothering, Like that requires you to pay attention and stuff.
Yes, it's it's nice to be able to Well, it's like I remember, like when I whatever, all the jobs I've had the best music ideas I think were me whatever it was making a making you know, a pizza at the restaurant, or busting a table, or or working on a piece of furniture. That's why I'm like, oh man, I want to get home. That's that's what I gotta do. I gotta put Reaver on that Snares run when I get home. That'll that's this time where you have the best ideas.
You know.
So if you can name me five albums from your.
Childhood, like before the age of thirteen, Like okay, the music that defines you, that you hold onto, that you grew up with, not like you know you heard your brother's playing or whatever like that you personally gravitated towards.
I loved a lot of deep Purple when I was a kid. That was that was a big band for your Richie Blackmore and Ian Pace what they were doing. I really love that.
I loved.
Roger Miller. I liked his sort of cross that cross between country and sort of I don't know what folk and forties tunes or whatever that he did, that sense of humor.
He had.
The Beatles a lot Beatles white album. I can't think of a Roger Miller name of an album, but maybe just say the catalog of Roger Milan or whatever, and then you know, you're talking about thirteen fourteen at that moment, there was a really funny moment that people kind of think is you know, I'm making it up. But you know, in Detroit, in the alleys, we had these giant dumpsters. They were trying to kill the rat problem in Detroit, so they got rid of garbage cans and they put giant dumpsters up. So one of my favorite things to do was on the way home from the school, walk down through the alleys and go through flip the top of each dumpster and see what was in there, dumpster diving and trash picking.
Oh wow.
And I found the Stooges first album on vinyl in in one of those dumpsters, and that really changed my life. It really, it was. It was kind of I went, I recorded it, I record I Want to Be Your Dog four track because of that, and it led me into punk rock in a bigger way.
Really. And have you and Iggy worked together or mad?
Yeah, we've we've We've done a couple of tours together and stuff. Yeah, he's he's incredible. And was that four Yeah, we'll see now, well probably, you know, it's anything to do with led Zeppelin would have been. I think LED's Uppin one.
I think led Up one.
You know, if someone asked me recently, what's the best first album of any group? Uh, And I'm kind of you think, like maybe Jimmy Hendricks's first album, Ramon's first album, But I think led Zeppelin one is pretty tough to top for a debut album. Oh yeah, So I mean every single track is you know, So.
Did you ever go because every music stop I know usually gets to that place because sometimes they go so deep in the abyss of the opposite direction, Like again, I grew up in the era of Columbia House. Yeah, where kids ask your parents. We used penny, yeah for a penny and TV guy, you tape a penny to that.
To that form.
Here yeah, and then here you're part you're part of a record club.
Like that's part of my ratchetsness, Like I was signed my grand man. Yeah, I did that scam in college. That's my worst punishment, Like my grandma.
Got y'all put them out of business.
By the way, Well, I'm just saying that I would also be too lazy to mail bo mail back via the stuff I didn't want an So yeah, I'm just like all right, Well Debbie Gibson all the blue, but then wound up listening to this ship and like committed it to memory.
Like yeah, so I'm saying, like I think mine was a Kenny g du Black people came want to low song bird.
My my mother in law cuts for Kenny.
People first take Debbie Gibson, go listen to the first Kenny supposed don't sound like.
Even before that on it. Oh yeah, guys, Jack White, this year, can we talk.
About said nothing about Kenny?
We fall down nobody over here saying anything about Kenny getting I'm getting to a point here. Yeah, black people had a love kids white people is the universal brigger together and white.
He was our first yes, and then came out and then like okay, it was Julian Roberts soundtrack.
So my point is, Columbia House scheme, did you ever go through a phase where, like, you know, you just.
Is there new kids on the block, cassette in your like as you got for when you were twelve years old or something like Wow.
That's a good question. I'm trying to think of that, like something sort of like you wouldn't.
Totally because I feel like serious, serious musicians and serious record people mature once they get out of high school. Once I was out of high school then and I started messing with y'all and you know what I mean, like and then your taste are more refined. But there was a period where I was just open and getting everything.
So it's tough, man, I'm trying to think of a time. But I definitely had probably too much of an attitude at like, you know, eleven through thirteen where I liked real musicians, so like I had a chip on my shoulder about that. Probably because of being raised by senior citizens and a lot of people in the family really loving music and older and it's you know, by the time in the late eighties was hitting, you know, it was sort of digital soundings gated reaver kind of sounding. Stuff was starting to sound fake and stuff. Yeah, I just gravitated normally to more of the seventies and sixties suff I mean I did, like, you know, the Guns and Roses, and I loved Michael Jackson of course, and lots of things from the eighties.
So I think that you.
Had to love to say I paid I I paid nominal attention to all those bands like Poison and Modley Cruise and all that kind of stuff, but I just didn't really.
Buy those records.
Now, the question is where you're having musical debates at this age to your peers, because your peers were listening to this music, but you were like, that's.
Not real music.
I can say that one thing that was that did bug me, you know, I was saying this in the interview recently, was you know, when when the first sort of sampling kind of came out, and when we're listening to on the front porches and stuff where it would be I think a good example was like the BC Boys of sampling the Ocean bio led Zepplin right, and it would be like the kids in the neighborhood didn't didn't know that that where that was from? And then it was uh epmd I shot the sheriff and it was sort of like yeah, it was like hey, whoa, whoa, that's that's you know, and they're like, so call and I'd be like, what do you mean? So, like, you know, I think the cool part is that if you know where this's from, that's cool. But then it was it's just that other debate of no, it's just the sound of it, it doesn't matter where it came from. Well, that was hard for me as a twelve thirteen years to kind of get my head around. It took me a few more years to figure that out.
But there's some people that also like for me, hip hop was crucial and explaining what my dad and my sister's record collection was, right, so I don't made a sense of it and put it in content.
Yeah, like my dad had that, uh so your dad would he would tell you where this sample came from.
My family had a large record collection, so something I wouldn't My sister had Houses of the Holy Sure, Actually she has Zeppelin one too, So I never knew about when the levee breaks until one day I saw a kid was listening to at lunch and I was like, wait, I know that drum break from somewhere right right, And then I put two and do together, like, wait a minute. The Beastie Boys used this, So in my mind I wasn't. I didn't know what sampling technology was or looping and none of that stuff. But once I got home, then I realized, like, oh shit, And then all of a sudden I died in the led Zeppelin that way.
So I mean, but how did it feel that you knew that information and your friends didn't didn't matter?
I you know, as a kid, I thought that everyone was supposed to have this samant knowledge of no who engineered what, and you know, put the headphones on and close your eyes and yeah, I just suggests. But you know, I get it now that not everyone is built that way, all right.
And it's fine. I think. You know, you like the sound of something, it doesn't matter where it came from. In a lot of ways, I always, like, I always say, if I'm driving in a car and it's my son with me, I'm gonna definitely tell him you know where this is from, this is this and that and this is how they did that. I won't be able to help myself.
I have to.
So, not knowing you personally, but knowing that you are big on collaborations. I mean between all the projects that you've done, I can only guess that you're the point person or the alpha person or the leader of these projects. How do you deal with in collaborative situations? Like how are you able to not manage people? Yeah, impose your will.
I love when my hope is that they the other person or other people are going to bring tons to the table and not just sit there and say tell me what to do whatever it is with. What if it's a bass player or a hired gun, I still want them to bring everything they can to the scenario. And especially if it's somebody else, like if it's you know, I think we both were talking, we were both played on the.
Record. Didn't make it, damn Tip anyway way to go? Jack made a right?
No?
No, I mean it's one thing if you do on a try record where you know, like Tip has a pedigree in engineering and all that stuff.
But like, you know, if.
It's just that I know that you know your music I Q is higher than thou like everyone else's. But I also would assume that you would know that you would alienate people.
Yeah, just I mostly I mostly keep my mouth shut. I think the times where I do say no, no, no, no, there's no way we can do it like that. It's just it's just not worth the awkwardness and the the reaction that I'm being a divo or control freak or something like that. So I'm for for ninety percent of a time, I will kind of put up with things that I can't stand. Uh, I don't know, lout of guilt, you know, and it's it's it's.
Uh so someone just brings a fifty seven shore to the session, You're just like.
Sure, Well, for example, is on this new album, there were definitely keyboard tones. We had four different keyboardistance you know, snth players and keyboard players that were definitely playing tones that I would have never picked in a million years. And I said, all right, let's let's see if it works. I want to be turned out there. At first, it would be like but uh, you.
Know, because DJ Harris is also how how you found Harris record?
Yeah, he's great man, and uh so they would they would they would pick up tones. Some of them I instantly love. Some of them was like, I don't know about that, but all of them, by the time we were into mixing the record, I thought all of them were amazing choices and they turned me onto tones that I would have never picked, that would have skipped right over.
Yeah, how did you cook up? Because you actually two good homies of mine. I've played with you, don Jone, Yeah and uh and DJ Hers How did you cook up with them?
Daru is an amazing, uh you know, fine form for my life because he came in. I produced a forty five with Black Milk, and he brought in Black Milk. We did the forty five in my studio, and then he did a live show at Third Man and he brought in Daru to play drums live for that, and it was just oh man. I actually said to Black Milk man, I'm gonna I'm gonna steal this drummer from you, you know, another half juggling half. No, I'm really I'm going to steal this drumpers. But I just couldn't believe he's just so unique and so incredible, so that that was a cool, uh scenario. And it's also great because you know everyone when you're in different times. If you play with people in Nashville who are from the bluegrass scene, they've played with so many other people that they're bringing their knowledge from playing with Bill Monroe or or some you know, other cat from from from back in the day and what they learn from them. And then people who played with hip hop live. And I think I've talked a lot about you know what I was, you know, first impressed when I first see roots back up jay Z or something I got on a live TV show or it was like playing that playing the samples and the recorded version with live instruments, which to me was like, that's that's for this albums Now, that's the musician. I want the musician that can do that. If you can perform live on stage, what what's what's been recorded as a sample or a loop or something like that. And and luckily a lot of those people were up for the idea.
And then DJ Harrison, how did you guys, how did he you.
Know, specifically on DJ?
I can't I can't remember specifically, but I was definitely going through footage and saying, who's this guy? How about that guy? I thought the randomness of saying, who's this guy playing keyboards behind Kanye in this clip? And okay, can we get him? And who's this person playing bass with Little John or whatever it would be uh or Lil Wayne. So it's just like, uh, you know, we'll get to people through these just random picks. And so some of them were there, showed up, someone were on tour, couldn't do it. Some of them, Oh I can't do it, but my friend can. So a lot of stuff would come.
Out of that. Yeah, he's just such a a hero of ours, like we have like a lot of his underground tapes.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
Very cool and so such a humble guy too, and really just ye, real interesting tones.
I didn't realize how young he was. I didn't really.
Yeah, you're like me, let me ask a question. I guess this goes to you in a mirror. Is it a small collective of those kind of musicians? Like how small is that collective of like repute, reputable musicians who can do that task?
Yeah? Well, see the thing I don't know.
Okay, So the thing that I really admire about all the projects that you've done, especially.
With uh.
Your non White Stripes projects. Is the discipline, And a lot of times it's hard for me to convey the musicians that sometimes less is more, that it doesn't always have to be.
About I'm over here. I'm over here, because you know, I mean.
There's complete websites dedicated to how many notes can I squeeze into you know this particular two par.
So for me, it's not about the quality or the level of the music.
I'm more into if they're disciplined, if they can keep it in the pocket, even though they play the most simple thing in the world, if they could play it consistent.
I hear them talking about what's the drummers name he played on Billy Jean.
Oh no in Doogo channel? Oh oh yeah, Leon? Yes, simple that just yeah.
Second, you hear that snare, you know exactly what it is, and it's just that means way harder than you know.
But that's your mantra too, That's always been your mantra. How can I sound like a metronome? But that's always what you say, But that's bullshit because you work hard to be.
A metronome and that closes up the gap then, because that's like even smaller number of musicians that I about.
To say if like for me, Daru is actually, oh god, I don't want to say this statement.
That means someone's got a razor blade and the thing cut it out. We're good. No, they couldn't shot out this analog.
No, Like he is a cat that I that he's my number one thumbs up drummer cat because he just understands the pocket, you know, and.
He has methodology to what he does, the way he sets up his kit reverse. I've never seen any drum.
Yeah to say, I thought that was something when I first saw him play. Uh we did a show with you and I saw jo like, yo, it's just gonna fall over. And I never once to I tried that once.
I tried sitting down and his kid, I can't play it. It's just impossible.
Yeah, it's that's a very neat thing to listen.
He kills the snare on the floor tim towards the audience. He's hitting. He's hitting like this in a mirror. Your wrists are bending the other way.
Oh wow.
In the mirror speak. He smoothed criminal leans the entire time the smooth Criminal leans the entire drum set towards the audience.
You know, okay, did you know that's Michael Jackson's only patent application.
I know, I don't even know what that means to lean.
He he did a slit in the shoe and he would slide into a nail on the floor and that's how they lean. So they were their feet were.
Nod.
Every single dancers on nails. That's crazy.
Yeah, there's a.
Good blooper Michael Once. Michael Once fell into the audience and it's it's well, he laughed like it was like.
A blooper movement. But because they were on pro tools and fish and.
So I want to see something interesting, Michael. I don't know if you guys have seen this clip, but have you ever seen this clip where Slash keeps playing guitar solo and Michael gets mad at him?
No?
Oh my god?
Really, I mean that was the only the only time I've ever seen Michael getting mad. Mad he Slash for somebody who is pissed about something, and he's coming out to do a black or white the end of the guitar sol blah blah blah, and Michael's like you know, give smoke and pointing right. He just doesn't stop, and then Michael starts going like this, folding his arms and looking around.
Like he's like why is he doing this?
And the joke to pull off the two guys came and pulled slash off.
Really this YouTube.
There's a good one also where it's raining, uh, like in Argentina it's raining and it's for Slippery's help. Michael was angry because like the guys aren't there, but he's just skating on the It's like at the beginning, he's skating all over the thing, but he's looking at them like make it stop, ready, and he's like passive aggressively like.
It's just running all over the place.
And I'm like, motherfucker, you're in Argentina, inf monsoon on a slippery stage with the open.
Like with no roof, like handle the damn show.
We missed you, Mike.
Anyway, So okay, with about to say, it's an hour and I think you get well play. Actually I want to start at the end. How do you know when it's time to close the chapter?
That's really great question. And I think that's probably.
Because I still think you guys are gonna come back with the record stripes.
You mean, yeah, yeah, And I think that in order for me to move on and call things under the name Jack White on my albums, that that band needed to be done so that it wasn't constantly okay, well thanks Jack, but can you get back to what we wanted you to do or whatever, And that kind of goes with you know, I've started over several times, start over with the rack and tours from scratch, start over the Dead Weather from scratch, started off solo from scratch. So you're not really supposed to do this if you have the act that's working and people are digging in and it's it's it's working out with people, so.
Well, I keep doing it.
But you know, I and it's just the way I have. I have to move forward and progress. So a lot of times I think, you know, I think Meg was always like, yeah, that I like finishing up on top where I don't I don't feel any regret about not even one song we ever did, and that that was kind of nice about that moment too.
And so yeah, I don't. I don't.
I don't feel any urged, urged for that to happen, and I've you know, I've also talked to people like, you know, Jimmy Page and Robert planm me to continue the lad Zepplin thread that you know. I mean, they obviously get asked every day for the last forty.
Year, when's when's the honey Drippers come back?
The Honeydrippers?
So it's it's uh.
I mean, I don't want you to have to reveal the smoke of mirrors of whatever your uh presentations are. But for those White Stripe records, were they completely a collaborative drum meg Jack moment.
Or did you do some songs by yourself.
I'm only asking because my my personal favorite album is Satan Yeah.
And the first time I heard uh the Nurse, Yeah, I was just like, yo, like, no one has no one's timing? Is this goddamn good except for people that play with themselves anyway.
Well, Prince has a way of doing that on Dirty Mind. There's a way that he and he answered this question. I was asking, like, why did you fluctuate on the title cut Dirty Mind so much? And he was like, well, you know, I have to give the impression that, you know, Prince the bass player is trying to keep up with Prince the drummer and Prince the synthesizer players trying to keep up with the bass player and that. So there's there's like a there's such a scientific, calculated, beautiful mess of fluctuation that I feel that only I've heard Stevie do it. I heard Prince do it. I've heard you doing on some of your solo records. Its assuming that the two songs in my head were completely done by you, But for some of those songs, like even you had to put in ten hours of rehearsal to get those hits correct or like what was what was the process? Was that all you at least on the nurse.
Well the nurse I'm playing marimba and the Meg's playing the drums, and that was done in my living room. We record that in my living room. But all those stabs and it's Meg.
I didn't see that. I didn't want to be accused of sex.
No, no, I hear what you're saying. I think you think on the flip side of that, Yeah, she nailed that song and that she you know, it's there was time megs. Meg's rhythm is beautiful. It's it's I think people think I'm dissinger when I say it's childlike, but I think there's that thing about saying. Papa Picasso said, I spent my whole life trying to learn how to paint like a five year old time. She she I would play White Strip song with other like sort of you know whatever, proficient drummers and and it wouldn't sound and when she would do it was like, that's just that's it. But she also say something like on that same album My Doorbell, the drum beat on that is very jumbly. The timing is squeezed together at times, spread out at times on the drums, and the drum beats really funky.
It's very cool.
I remember Jimmy Ivy and I had talked to him. He goes, Man, that Wrecked is a hit. He goes, but you needed to record it, right, you know, it needs to be recorded properly by somebody.
You know.
It's like, well, I'll tell me what's wrong with you know, the way we did it. I know obviously there's no pop appeal really to what the way we did it. It's a it's a very you know.
When came I was spending the ship out there, like I thought that was going to be like thanks that moment.
It felt, it felt, it felt really cool and maybe you know, I would love someone to cover that song. I think that's there's some there's some really cool things that that could happen with the harmonies and stuff. But uh, yeah, for example, that that drum beat was it's like almost squeezed together, forced at times, and feels like that, but it's it just works out. It makes sense.
You know.
Can you talk about Meg's relationship with the drums, because whenever I read about it, it sounds like she met the drum, she fell in love with the drum, and then she just killed it.
I think she's just very reluctant and then also got pick picked on so much through all the years of you know, everyone saying she's the worst drummer in music and and that really affects that do this just seemed like every day she was saying that. I think a lot of people that I spent a lot of time sort of defending that because and here's what happened when we were before we when we were first started to get got signed on our third album, she said to me, so, you know, Jack, people out there in the mainstream, they don't know the glories and the Velvet Underground and this simple kind of drumming style on things. They're not going to understand me reference and they're not going to get this this idea. They're just going to think I suck, you know. And I said, you know, there are gonna people who aren't going to understand that. But I don't think it's worth us. You know, we have to go out and push lord and and just bring that to people, that simplicity. You know, what are you gonna do? Some people are gonna get it, some people aren't. And it's the same thing to me. You know, how much how much crap does Charlie Watson Ringo Star get all these years later? I mean, Ringo is insanely good man. I mean there's some drum fills that are planning in my brain that Ringo has done. And because he's not John Bonham or or Neil Burt or something, I don't understand. I don't understand that kind.
Of I didn't realize he was catching hell because like for me, for me, uh what Gregsonier the drummer of Deerhof and Meg are like definitely my tooth. Like I've stalked to you guys millions of times like yeah, in concert, But I never thought that that was.
She's very I think she was the kind of person to make people want to start playing about this.
Is it true? Does she really felt it? Like she learned very easily and mastered it.
Yeah. Very early Stress recordings were just those stabs, just.
You know, and it was like that.
I think the first thing we do is David Bowie's she wanted to record, Ah, what's the song I'm an Alligator my mama? Yeah, it's on Ziggie. Sorry the names escaping me, but we we did that song first, and it was just that was the beginning of our sound. Was that just these stabs bam, and we thought, wow, let's keep going with this, and it turned into a whole thing and so changed my whole outlook on music completely. That brought it down to a minimalism. And then it was a great, great out let to do the blues and not be that sort of stratocaster sort of white boy blues at the time, which was very sort of super super un cool, and you yeah, I think so now, Yeah, the blues had become that kind of you know that stratocaster really clean, slick thing at that at that moment through the nineties, and it was a little bit like a bar band, a little bit of an embarrassing thing too, but it's also at the same time we wanted to do the raw, getting down to the real nitty gritty of it, the lightning Hopkins and the you know, hound dog tailor and those kind of things, and figure out a way we could get away with it, you know, and a lot of the things to do with white starts, the red, white and black color scheme and the way we presented it like children was a great way for us to get.
Away with it, because that's how you found your personal voice, because you're speaking voices relatively low, and all of your vocal deliveries are super high and super in that stratosphere. Sort of comes from a blues place, but it's interesting just listen.
To I don't know, that was a natural thing and that that really high stuff. And I know there was one song and I had my postery shop that love was the BBC Beatles BBC Sessions and it was the Beatles Hippy Hippie Shake, their cover of Hippy Hippie Shake. And when it starts off with pau McCartney. You know I won't do it now to blow.
Out the mic, but oh goodness, sake just super high, shake it to the left, shake it, oh oh yo, my and shake can just go even higher than the highest note you did before that.
I started to get really into that, so yeah, now it gets it gets wilder. I think there's some stuff on the new album where I'm I'm really squealing up in some some two octaves above where I normally say it's just skiddy up and some wilder stuff.
What is your your weapon of choice?
And I know that you have an array of guitars and a collection from heaven, but you're I can't die without it?
Is it the k how value?
Or is it?
Is it?
There's I have this Army and Navy Gibson Acoustic now that I got a few years ago that's now become like that's my favorite guitar. It's really it's from nineteen seventeen. They built it for They made these for supportedly for World War One soldier and as soon as they finally got the guitar of reproduction, the war was over. So there's not very many of them. They're like this scaled down stripped down version of an l one like Robert Johnson would have used. So it's really really soft and and the neck as I could baseball bat, and it's just it just it fits me perfectly.
So for you, the instrument also has to have a specific tone. I don't know, it's weird for me because back when I didn't have a choice, when like we would have to play in shitty.
Studios.
Like my first drum set is some out of like Alex Van Helen's Nightmare, Like it's like some TAMA like power Stroke, you know, like it's straight heavy metal, like all of the organ No, I'm serious, you know, maybe.
That goes back to like the what's the record, the you know, the boy band record. Maybe maybe maybe I went through that same period too, which is like you kind of get into maybe two kick drums, maybe rototomas maybe seventeen times and you kind of have to go through that moment and put that out of your system.
My point was that.
At the time, like I was bitching, I was like, yo, like I can't, I can't do no break beats on a you know, a triple kicks your own TAMA and the drums like this big Yes, it was.
It was serious.
Everything you're described is what I did my first record was. And then my engineer was like, dude, it doesn't matter because the only thing that matters is how we translated it in the mixing board. And once I realized, like, oh, I can manipulate this to sound any way I want to. I mean, it's smoking mirrors a lot, but it's in the engineering. So I mean, does it truly matter if you know, if you have a particular you know, Gibson or Strata or this.
Did you have a Montgomery Ward?
Yeah? I mean for the most part was it headlines and silver tones and really cheap auto tune, hard to work with guitars up until this album right now where I wanted to use the easiest guitar I could possibly play. So I'm playing this Eddie van Halen's Wolfgang that he designed for all this took new and it's and it's just like, I've never played a guitar tard this easy to play. It's crazy. I don't It's it's one of those things where what do you do? You know, when you get a first class ticket on a plane, do you can you ever go back?
I was gonna say, do you have do you have a fear of.
Once you sort of dabble and dip your toe into all right, let me see what garage band is about. Or get this particular new shiny drum set or guitar whatever that you might slip into a rabbit hole you can't fall out of.
Yeah, I think I definitely, I'm sure, you know. I'm definitely what we were saying before, from the disciplined sort of side of things, where I can dabble and and and get something out of it, but then return to what I think feels more soul for and more makes more sense for what I trying to accomplish. I'll love I'll sit around and play with a synthesizer for hours, knowing full well that I'm never going to use this thing live or something like that, you know, but sometimes it does. When we did I dump, I was trying to I use this instrument that you the Beels used on. Baby, you're a rich man. This clavioline, the very first synthesizer, and that became a thing. It took on stage and I turned into a mold, little fatty and then I started to, you know, learn more about that, and that's now become a big instrument for me? Is that mug?
So when you're making decisions on what instruments and to use and to play, do you have a judgment jeurey in your head?
So, okay, say, if I presented to you.
The first edition of a Yamaha DX seven from like nineteen eighty six, like this horrible Richard marks patches.
Sure you turn a purple, yeah, says.
Richard playing the electric piano patch.
No, but it's it's like, uh, if if presented with that, I mean, oh my god, you just ever have a moment where you just fucking forget your question?
Oh yeah, make it work?
Where you trying to say that could I make I think I was going to go there, but there was a reason why, no whatever, But I mean could you.
I mean, could you make it work?
Or well there's that line from what's that line? I think John Lennon said something about you know, I'm an artist. If you give me a tub, but I'll fucking make some sounds come out of it. You know that that that's your job as an artist. That went handed the scenario, which I think that I've done a lot in the in the past, which is the set up the scenario of here's where we're gonna be, here's where people are going to be in the room, and here's how long we're going to be here. That's it. As far as the music sounds like, I don't care what it's going to come out, like if it comes out Soulfa comes out punk, it doesn't matter to me as long as I've set up the scenario. And like I said some of the keyboard choices that some of those tones to me at first was like wow, okay, and then later I'm like, okay, yeah, now I get it. That really does work. It really does work. And I don't remember emitting any of them while we were mixing the album.
So part two that question is are you afraid that snobs like us will be cool man? Everyone uses the data d like I can instantly tell that it was a DATAA app that he used, or sure.
I'm a big fan of not noticing production, which is it's hard for me to like when I hear like, oh they put that even todd reverb on that vocal. I hear that, I hear that when I don't hear it, when I just hear the music, I don't even notice the production. I really love that. That feels good to me.
But can you but can you even enjoy an album without getting into It's hard for me to do that, Like I'm analytical and figure out what they.
That's my hope. My hope is the first just love it, love it and listen to it and maybe ten listens down start thinking, wow, how did they get that drum sound? That that's Uh? I was just thinking about that.
Uh.
Yesterday in the car we were listening to uh, Let's Go Crazy guitar solo and it was sort of like, you know, I never thought about it. What was using an octave pedal on this? I never heard a solo a thousand times?
Uh just saw it.
I don't know. I'm not kind of want to go look that up now.
But can you talk about your evolution of thinking of that? Because until Thursday, because I didn't say that because I think like with the Early White Stripes record, it was just like two people in a room press record and go whereas this this last album feels.
Like to me the opposite.
But you did put it into pro tools, and you did cut it, you did smush it around because and then that and that seems not antithetical to what you're saying, but like like an evolution and even like the let's say that the White Stripes early records seemed super riffy to me and super hooky. The middle of your career, to really put it bluntly, like the Dead Weather Racket tour stuff is a is a different thing, moving more towards rock, and then this feels that's the hope. Yeah, right, But what was like your song writing process during those whole things, because it feels like a definite crescendo and or move.
Yeah, it's it's a definite move. And I use a lot of techniques I've never used before. I recorded and I rented in an apartment where I used the same equipment I had when I was a teenager, the same reel to reel by myself, no amps, no drums, So I was singing along with a drum machine, writing the songs, writing the melody of the song without any musical accompaniment. So a lot of these songs started as just a vocal melody and then everything was added later. And then took it to New York and LA and played with people I've never met before, and with three days only in each studio. Let's hurry up and figure something out, and then recording all that to tape and then dumping it to pro tools and edding in pro tools for months. I had something I'd never done before either.
So you put yourself on a time limit.
Yeah for each city? Yeah, three days in each city.
Why do that?
Because I wanted the energy of uh I didn't tell them as I told them as late as possible before we did it, so that the energy is, holy shit, what are we doing? And then nobody knows each other. So you have that great energy in the room of everyone's scared a little bit and they also want to impress each other, so you get that great energy. That's totally different if I would have said two weeks at that time. Okay, guys, here's the demo for the song. Learn this part, learn that part, see on Wednesday at two o'clock and then we'll have lunch.
Yeah.
Then they've got they've prepared it, they figured it all out. But to walk in the room and nobody knows what's gonna happen, that's a wig more interesting, Davis.
Something that happened in this room with with d and you guys, all the millions of hours.
Of Angelo everybody we recorded Voodoo.
In this room.
Who were the players on this new record? Players?
We got Neil Evans and DJ Harris, he's in New York. There's a monster Charlotte Camp on bass who plays with the Ghost to the Saber due Tiger Sean Lennon's band. She has her own band. I think it's called Oonie. And then Uh, the drummer was Lewis Cato on this session. I gotta ask you, Tip who the who he thought was good New York to grab and he said Lewis and then I And then in La we had Carla Azaar on drums, who I brought one person I knew there as a you know, sort of anchor, like, Okay, I've got one person I work with and I know everyone else is going to be strangers. And we got brew what's his name, Brewster Brew forgot his last name on keys, as well as Quincy McCrary. And then we had el Nino from Ozon Motley on percussion. Oh, Bobby Allende on on Conga's in New York too, I forgot that.
Who mixed uh this album?
I mixed it with Josh Smith, my engineer in Nashville. We did it on pro tools the editing, and then we mixed it through my Neive console.
So okay, yeah, I want to also talk about other projects he worked on. You produced Van Lea Rose.
Yes, I want to know well, and also I wanted to Jackson's album as well. How do you.
How do you when you're when you're working with someone that's obviously not in your generation?
Yeah, and.
How do you cause again you well, Fantine mentioned earlier that you have to manage people.
Oh yeah, so.
I havn't been in her presence a few times.
How did you.
Get that album achieved?
And it's tough. I mean, every every person is different, obviously, but I've definitely done my time with many octagenarians. But but it's Uh, Loretta was just great because she's just so funny and so talented, and it would be line by line a lot of it. She rushes, She starts singing the next line before it's time, before we've gotten to that moment, and I said, okay, you got to put that pause in there, and she goes, Jack, I've been doing this miss my first record. I'm I'm famous for this, needs to make fun of me. Back in the sixties about this I rush and she does. She rushes a live on stage. The band has to jump to the next verse because she just runs to the next line, so we'd have to do it, and we did it on tape, so we had to do it line by line, a lot of that stuff because we couldn't edit it later and you didn't use pro tools. No, that was on a track.
Always wanted to know if you oh shit, really yeah, so the patient's factor.
Was, oh, yeah, very patient. Yeah, you know what.
One of my favorite but see, one of my favorite Jowins was, uh, how did you get her to do? Was it a little red shoes?
Yeah?
Yeah, she told the story and yeah, she was just telling us that story in between takes, and I was like, who hold on, don't don't finish, you know, let's roll tape real quick. And she went back and enrolled to he had a music afterwards. I added the music later and edited that together back in Detroit at Brandon Studio.
Because in my head, I'm like, yo, how in the world did he manage to oh man, that it have been a night perfect?
Yeah? I like this.
She actually tried to do it. She actually tried to tell a story along with the music, but the story kept going. This song had ended long ago, and she had five more minutes of story to tell, so that took a lot of time to edit that down into making it work. But it was it was very cool. She got the idea. She thought it was a very cool idea.
Okay, when you uh, you also did a Bond song? Yes, yeah, with Alicia?
What movie was it for?
Quantum of Silent?
Quantum of.
So? Is it?
Is it caricature? Is it an honor to be asked, you know, to do the the iconic Bond song? Yeah?
That that that is?
That was an insane honor. It was also I knew I was entering sort of like you're like, you're doing something for Star Wars or Star Trekers, and you entering this franchise. You're entering a world of of pain because you know, this is a whole fifty years of fans who are very scratchy about anything to do with their beloved characters, so you have to careful. But the reason I got that gig was because Amy Winehouse wouldn't show up to the recording sessions they were going to do. I think it was I don't know what it was. I guess it was Amy Winehouse and someone else was a duet, and because she wasn't showing up, they asked if I would do it, and what about me doing a duet, and I said yeah, and I offered the idea of Alicia Keys and they said okay, and they just didn't have much time. So I thought, oh, this is good. Now I'm going to get to do some shit out that way would never let me do if they had given me a year to work on this, so it was super complex. I recommend to people that listen to just the instrumental of that song because it's really really bizarre changes that go on in that And that was a drum based thing, and Alicia came into to Nashville and did her thing with it. But it's very divisive. I think it was the first time I had to put out a song as divisive and people just loved it or hated it. The time I got to hang out with Prince, he was at this club and I walked over and sat down and he said, well, I really loved that James Bond thing you did all sudden it was at the time it had just come out, and oh thanks for saying that because a lot of people hate it, and he goes, really, I thought it was real.
Strong, wildly she keys because you said that was the first person.
That you thought that.
I just thought her voice would just be like who's you know, like the just the soaring thing, and she did a lot of that kind of just the soaring vocals.
How many did they make you do several different drafts of that song before you they finally they did.
They came back to me and they wanted me to put a power ballot in the middle of the song, and they wanted it. They wanted me to try again on something else, but I knew they were running out of time, so it's like, I'll try.
But was it like the most creative, most hands in your creative process ever?
Yeah, it was definitely.
Wow.
If this had been if we had started this six months ago, I probably would have dropped out because it would have just been Okay, guys, you just get somebody else. I'm not your guy, you know.
Well, okay, he was one of those funny you know some always wanted to ask okay, So, last time I did a show with you, you do this very unique thing where none of your okay, so he travels with I don't know if you still do this, but two bands, an all male band, all female band. Yeah I did that and they all get dressed to the nines, and then about forty five minutes into show time, they're told which band is going to be his band tonight?
What?
But what do I think we still do that? I'm not coming to the day Sinray angry there but one. I mean I never I'm never going to ask you why you do things? Because you are you are and that's why.
So but.
Do they feel some sort of way like, Okay, if.
They're in l A, have an hour.
I'll give you.
I'll give you all the the reactions to taking an hour to explain that.
I was going to say, like because the first time I did it, ah Man, rest in peace. To Ike.
Ike was telling me like, yo, I might come to your jam session, but I gotta wait for word. It's a word or what He's like, I don't know if I'm gonna playing with Jackson. I said, I thought you were a keyboard player, and then he explained to me the system that he might and just happened to be the night that you chose. Are they the Peacocks.
Yeah, the girls with the Peacocks and the boys were the Buzzards, right.
So you chose the Peacocks when he was like a great, I'm off yeah, and then.
He came to our gig and but this was this was for two albums ago, and Ike was the first person to positively love it and respond to it, at least to my face. But uh so I had gathered them together and said, you know, I had a group me like, here's what's going to happen. I want to have an all male band and an all female band. And the reason why is I want people to not know who's going to play with me that night, and I want them to react and say, you know, it would be almost like I'm trying to think of a way to do it, like if I had a band of all eighty year old people and a band of all teenagers, A wait for them to directly know this is a different band. So if it was a mixed together band, maybe a lot of people wouldn't pay attention. You wouldn't say, was that the same band that played in Cleveland yesterday? So this was a definite way for them to know, oh no, this is a different band completely, So that was the one way to do it, and also to mess with the preconceptions that people have about female musicians too, which you know, I think don't kind of ridiculously in this thing and age still kind of treat like a novelty. Oh isn't that cute? You play girl, you play fiddle, or you play you know, steal guitar. So I sat them all don said, here's what's gonna happen. We're gonna go on tore and there's at breakfast, I'm to decide who's playing that night. It's gonna have absolutely nothing to do with what you did last night. It's not a competition, you know. But here's the great thing. You get paid either way. Wow, you're gonna get a day off when you didn't know it, so it's gonna be a nice surprise, or you get to play that night. And sometimes we're gonna do two nights in a row, three nights in a row, and you can't get your feelings.
Was there a night where it was like the Pecks at like six nights in a row and I.
Think three was the most. And there was definitely times where people were sort of they felt some way I think it was the one sign where they actually spoke up and we had I I conceded was I wanted them to come out in New York, and I wanted the male band to come out and play one note and leave. They were insult.
What about but what about yeah? Because it's nice for like my parents are coming to see.
Yeah, it was.
It was that kind of thing. It was our friends are here, it's New York, and if we're doing it, we got to do it. It was that kind of thing. I was, all right, I'll concede. I understand, you know, you know. The idea was it was to fake out, to fake the crowd out.
And Carlo was also your drummer.
She was the girl in the girl man right.
So the thing is is if you make the decision two hours before showtime, then does she have to adjust Daru's jump set.
It's at breakfast at Breste.
Yeah, breakfast, and then one of these nights the decision was me, okay, so no, no normal that You're right, There were no there were times you you might have been at that. There were times where okay, the a lot of times all the musicians would come and watch the show anyway, which was great. There was like a real family. They already wanted to see and they also want to see what we were doing because we were doing different versions of the same song with two different bands, which so I was rehearsing in Nashville one studio, and then I would drive across town and this other student rehearsed with them and try to come up with a whole different arrangement for that same song.
And you never put them together. They never got to.
We did when Portland, Oregon from the vanle Rose album we played Portland, we did the whole band together, all boys and girls together.
A guy like me, like, I can see right now if I was like playing Madden on the tour bus and maybe one of the dudes kicked my ass, and I feel like, all right, whatever, girls tonight.
I got a question, Jack, My my favorite scene in the in the Guitar Guys documentary do you know what what is it called?
It has a great yeah? Yeah, okay, So my favorite scene is You're in a room with Edge. It's like a room like this with Edge and Jimmy Page and you and and Jimmy Page lights into Kashmir. And the best part of this film is it then pans over to you and I just want to know what you were thinking, because you.
Just look like.
Whatever.
It was something like that, and you were just like, holy shit, I'm in a room like this is happening. And just I thought there was such a genuine reaction but b Roll, talk about b Roll. It was that was like a legit be real.
It was because it was it was a surprise moment because he had I often joke and say, well people a while of people don't realize it was because the dessert cart was standing right behind. But it was actually a surprise moment. We were just talking and nobody had said anything about anything about playing at that moment. We were just talking like this and he just stood up and plugged in and just started playing Whole Lot of Love.
It was like whoa.
But the director sent me that clip and I'm like, damn man, people are gonna be talking about that for the rest of my life. And I was like, all right, let it go ahead, put it in the movie.
It was so real.
It was genuinely not this is just beautiful. It just it was incredible.
When it was pitched to you, you didn't have any reservations of like because to me, it's almost like summit meetings like that had they have the tendency to turn on their face. There's there's the infamous uh you ever heard of a toot.
And a snort? Are you talking about him? You know about it? Okay?
So a tune to snort is there's the worst, the worst piece of shit ever. It's a record on paper, it's awesome. So John Lennon is producing, Harry Nielsen and Stevie Wonder also happens to be working on fulfilling this first finality down the hall, and Paul McCartney happens to be in doing something in the sea room, and so I guess during like a dinner break, they all decided to get together and let's just have a jam. So this will be the last noted time that Lennon McCartney on the studio together. So Stevie's on drums, I think. So Stevie's on drums, Nielsen's on guitar, McCartney's on bass, and I think also Lennon's on guitar, and.
Again Stevie Wonder. John Lennon, you said, Steve, that's what you went, all right, Steve that the Peacocks.
And they struggle through stand by me for like forty five minutes, and it's like a bunch of five year olds are playing like it's the worst of shit ever. And it's called a snort because at one point I think Lennon offers h goes.
To Steven says, you want to to snort? You know that sort of thing?
No, man, but it's you would think that, you know, the summit meeting of the gods would result in, you know, some sort of million dollar sun record session ship.
No, nope, there's the worst piece.
Of cameras in the room or what ruins it too?
Because speaking of which, everyone, Okay, so we got cameras in this room. Everyone, can we just say yes one second? Like not yes, the cameras. Okay, can we all just laugh right now?
Stop? Okay, Steve's sugar, Steve's literally or I g right now.
So your regularly third man, you guys, actually you're a plant your press records.
Yeah, what is the lead time on your stuff?
Because I might actually need the press.
We try to be as fast as possible. Like one of the one of the hold ups is plating a record, you know, getting it, getting the metal plates made. That usually is the is the one thing that installs the project the most, because once you have the masters in the room and you can just kind of start whipping whipping them out as long as the test pressings are sound properly. So there's there's some stumbling things that test pressing come back and there's a there's a skip, and then you got to start over again, get a new plate made so that that can be But but usually it's pretty can be pretty fast a few weeks.
Does the various UH artwork are creature is then caricature?
UH?
Does the various.
Options of artwork that you do to your vinyl like you once had uh an angel appear Holograham angel on you like?
Does that affect the sound at all? Uh?
Some of those things do. Number one, if you the reason why black vinyl is became the normal color for vinyl is because it's the best sounding color, the best sounding substrate, well not substrate, but the best sounding material. When you use colored vinyl like red or blue or anything like that, you do lose lose sound quality. So that's why black became the standard.
Right, Okay, UH, any final questions before I wrap this one or two?
So as a mir stated earlier. We're in electrically studios here in New York. I know you here before. Have you ever recorded here?
The White Stress put on a concert here. That is the only time I've ever recorded here, and we actually released it. It was we did a version of our song Ball and Biscuit. We did like a ten minute version of it. I think we released it on a twelve inch vinyl at the time. And that was a great show. That was the only time I'd ever been.
Before any future desire to do a record here or anything, Oh, I would love to, I really love to. Well, I'm only asking, h Yeah, I didn't. Who's cracking up right now?
I am. We don't know why.
Because of the legacy obviously Jimi Hendrix and.
So forth and everybody else's who's recorded here, and and plus it's almost fifty years.
Old, and.
Recording this new album at Sears Sound when we came to New York, that was the first time I've ever recorded in New York City. So I have never recorded in New York and LA and anything. I did one little thing with Keith Richards here once and one little thing for Cold Mountain in LA. And that was the only time I ever recorded in those the big cities. I always kind of was scared to come to New York and LA to record, like it was too much going on to Clusterphobe. So I thought, well, that was another way in this album to break out of some things I'd never done before, was to do that.
I guess unrelated question, but have you are you a fan of the Daptone Records label?
Yeah, they're doing great, great work, great work.
For those who don't know.
They do a lot of vintage sounding recordings and use eight track.
Yeah, you know. It's also what's what's good about it, though, is the marriage of trying to find what's soulful out anything. If it's an amplifier, if it's equipment, you know, it's not just the idea of using it because it's old or because it's novelty or something like that. It's about finding what's the best sound for whatever you're trying to do. I mean, if you're using you know, I saw Stevie Wonder one time we played and his clavinet broke. You know, it's like, that's amazing that he's using a real clav He doesn't have to use a real clav but it's nice to see that he is. And and you know the difference between a cloud emulation and a real cloud, I want to see it's there's two different things. Not to say, you can't use a cloud sitting on a keyboard and blow my mind, you know. You know, I think we did on this album. I think we used a fake cloud on some song and it was it was, it sounds amazing. It's just about what works for you. And you know what if what I like to do is marry the best from the future and the and the past together and find some some kind of synthesis between that and that way you get somewhere new with it. I'm always trying to get somewhere new, you know, regardless of how what what microphone and what pamp is in there.
Bill, I'm good man, I got that was a great way to close.
Signals.
I got the Yeah. So anyway, so we want to thank you for coming to show so much.
I mean, sholl tell you incredibly interesting and intelligent questions. You guys, thank you really really did your homework and everything. I'm just impressed.
We're amazing.
You obviously really love music, and that's I love to hear that.
Music nerds So before I sign off, I just want to remind you listeners. Yeah, I'm doing my wet to pay. My fourth book HarperCollins comes out. Uh, you can get it right now.
Is this recording, It's called Creative Quest. It's a book or a manual guide uh to creativity. If that's such a hard.
Stay tuned for the audiobooks.
I'm excited actually the other audio books and ship.
I after hearing Jennifer Lewis's audio book, I went and readid my entire audiobook over again and it's fully there's a soundtrack to it, there's vignettes, there's acting, it's it's on point.
Yeah, that was like a creative It is Richard Nimblefield Quest Love.
Anyway, when we have a fan Tickelo unpaid Bill Boss, Bill Sugar, Steve Star of Chat with Sugar, it's like, we gotta get chat or you know when you when you come to fallin uh in the future, we gotta get you on No, I'm we just for three minutes Chat with Sugar.
You and Jack white Jack. Thank you very much.
This is Quest Love and we'll see you in the next go around and Love Supreme only on Pandora.
Thank you. What's Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
